Stanford football: Grading the Week

In case you missed it, here’s my post on Andrew Luck calling his own plays in no-huddle situations against UCLA.

(It won’t be the last time, either. The Cardinal will use the ploy throughout the season.)

You’ll notice that there are no comments from Luck on the topic.

By the time coach David Shaw made mention in the post-game interview room of what Luck had done — as opposed to his normal course of action: picking from 2-3 plays called from the sideline — No. 12 was long gone.

Result: Beat UCLA 45-19

Grade: A

Comment: Against mediocre opponent, Stanford played its most complete game of the season:

The Cardinal was productive in the first half and efficient in the red zone (five touchdowns) and on third down (10 of 14). All were points of emphasis during the bye.

* UCLA rushed for more yards (141) than Stanford’s three previous opponents combined. But I wouldn’t call that cause for alarm for the Cardinal in the post-Shayne Skov era.

The Bruins’ offense is predicated on the run and uses an unconventional system (Pistol).

That said, Stanford missed a fair number of tackles — a matter that must be cleared up before Washington and Chris Polk come to town Oct. 22.

* Tailback Stepfan Taylor had another 100- yard game and gained tough yards in the red zone.

He’s averaging over 100 ypg and is on pace for one of the best seasons in Stanford history.

* Stanford had no turnovers Saturday and only one this season: Luck’s sign-of-the-apocalypse Pick Six at Duke.

That’s the lowest giveaway total in the country. (Northwestern is the only team with two.)

* Tight end Coby Fleener caught two touchdown passes and has eight in his last five games.

Jon Wilner

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The offense was brilliant and it’s tough to criticize their performance. But I’m still waiting for a return to the second half of 2010 when the team relentlessly scored at will on lesser opponents. The defense did well against the run, but gave up too much on pass plays to Brehaut and Fauria. Tom Fitgerald at SFgate really summarizes it well:

If they want to keep in the hunt for a BCS spot, both sides of the ball need to be nearly perfect. Washington and WSU are now pretty good offenses– then there is the matter of U$C and Oregon.

But how about that crowd!!! A sellout for UCLA, no less. Just checked and there are no genl admission tickets for the Buffs. Could that be a full house also?

tk94111

elPalo, welcome back! The best part of that sellout was that it was mostly cardinal, not powder blue or gold – it was a home team sellout, not a caravan sellout (like the SC game last year). I will repeat what I said on the other post about Luck that I pooched by drawing unnecessary comparisons. If you saw Luck at the end of the game, he gave a post-game interview answering dumb questions to those Fox Sports fools, and then RAN. Ran to his teammates in the Red Zone as the alma mater played. He didn’t go hang out by himself, go to the locker room. He joined his teammates and classmates as the Stanford Hymn played. This kid is special. Nice job, Oliver. You’ve raised a great son.

tk94111

…oh and now that we’re winning consistently my childrens’ regular trips on the field after the games won’t be so regular any more, I guess. They thought it was a normal thing to just go on the field when the clock hits 0:00…

Gauss

Great game. The sellout was fantastic to see.

The offense was ticking, but bummer that the Stanford’s 2010 defense seems to be gone forever.
Oh well, let’s enjoy what we have. The next two games shouldn’t be too difficult, and then the real season will start. Hopefully we’ll have improved somewhat, and we’ll have a chance to run the table.

Man, Stanford and “running the table” in the same sentence. What have we come to?

Scott

Awesome atmosphere. The Red Zone was impressive. Curious what the student % attendance was. Even “the wave” made like 10 roundtrips.

Go Card

BMan

@JW – What do you mean there were no comments by Luck referencing calling his own plays. Can you not read between the lines at all???
“It’s so much fun to play in this offense,” he said after the game. “Our coaches challenge us intellectually. Here’s the scheme, now it’s up to you to execute. We want that. It’s partly why a lot of guys come to Stanford in the first place. You get challenged academically and athletically. So much fun.”

And here’s a tip: when you say something like, “Shaw was clearly unhappy with the penalties,” give a quote. Though I am not doubting this, when you make a statement of fact rather than your opinion you need to back it up. That will keep you from getting in the kind of trouble you did by stating that Price (Washington QB) possibly didn’t have the grades to get into UCLA. You are a reporter, supposedly. Just b/c this is titled a blog doesn’t give you free will to state facts without backing them up.

Other than that, I’d actually give Stanford a slightly lower grade b/c of their missed tackles. Offense was incredibly efficient, but defense still needs more work (not that they are doing poorly though).

StanFan

Great game; however, defensive backfield is still too slow in coverage. I know that they don’t want to give up the long ball, but staying away 10-15 yards from receivers is a bit too much. D-backs tackling wasn’t that good either. Unless the pass defense improves, I’m afraid Barkley (USC) will kill us. He is one of the best in the nation and has several great receivers..much faster and evasive than our D-backs can handle. Hope we keep trying the new guys… the experienced D-backs are no good.

StanTheMan

I heard that the 4,000 Red Zone seats sold out in less than 5 hours. Keep in mind that this represents one-third of the combined grad and undergrad population – pretty impressive.

I was not as thrilled as Wilner by the overall performance, and worry that better will be needed against USC or Oregon. The penalties in the second half were not good, and I agree with StanFan about the DBs.

But I like how the schedule difficult grows as we get closer to Nov 12.

NQR

While it is obviously true that Stanford will have difficulty handling the best passing attacks, here are the facts. Every team Stanford faces the rest of the way has a pretty good passing attack with exceptional WRs, including:

Let’s not forget, Arizona didn’t go off passing against Stanford. Sure they completed a lot of passes, but last time I checked the scoreboard is what matters. Arizona only scored 10 points against Stanford. When they played at USC they scored 41. For everyone handwringing about Stanford’s pass defense, they need to keep this in mind.

They also should keep in mind that Stanford’s offense is its best defense. Stanford has the ability to go on long, clock eating, defense tiring drives. It’s very difficult for college teams to execute consistently well enough to maintain possession and score a lot of points. Stanford does this and the opponents by and large, do not.

Pass-happy teams may complete a lot of passes on Stanford, but Stanford doesn’t give up big passing plays or big runs and has one of the best Red Zone defenses in the country, ranking #5 right now. The longest scoring play Stanford has allowed is a 13 yd TD pass to UCLA’s TE.

I’m pretty sure Stanford can live with that.

Darius

NQR and I are on the same page. Doesn’t matter how good the passing game of the other team is (in the grand scheme). Remember the first half of last year’s Stanford-Oregon game?

If the Cardinal Offense is clicking, who cares about the other team!

I would agree with Wilner that Saturday’s game was an “A.” Not A+. The Defense played a great game, not perfect, but the way they set the tone from the very beginning that they were ready to protect the House, you knew that even if they went to the bring, they wouldn’t crumble.

If they do the same thing to Washington State then I’d give them and “A+,” because it would be a road game making it more impressive.

I like the team’s chances against U$C, especially seeing how Arizona schooled the U$C defense. No way U$C gets that much time of possession against Stanford, which is what they’ll need to score north of 20 points, talk much less of 30 or 40 points (which is likely what they’ll need to win the game.

Oregon isn’t relevant at this point, as there are more important and relatively tough games ahead (and if Kal “bears” down this year…). Just kidding.

NorCal Tree

I’ll set the grade at A- as there are clearly areas for improvement. The MLBs on pass protection need to come up to speed, but they will get there over the next two games. There were also some missed tackles, but that’s going to happen with these guys getting more reps. On O, I want the wideouts to step it up as we will need them. Luck worked really hard to get Owusu that TD and he also set up Whalen. These guys need to step up their game. As for special teams, let’s get a solid punt in when we need it. The biggest negative was the number of penalties (not including the hair collar), which is rare for a Stanford team and will hurt us when it’s close. Shaw will take care of that.

Stan – it was 5000 student tix that were sold out overnight. Both the family plan and the mini plans are sold out. Get your tickets now if you can. This teams is ramping for a run!

elPalo

@TK, thanks for the welcome. I’ve been around, just not posting. Interesting phenomena I’ve noticed, of which I am a microcosm, but as the team keeps winning many of the regular posters are not here. On the other hand, on this blog and others I’ve noticed an influx of new people.

Perhaps life is too good when we think that the team can do better despite being 4-0. But we all know that if the Cardinal is to make a huge mark on the Div I landscape, this is the one year it can. We’ve all seen the offense go on relentess drive after drive, scoring TDs the first 7 or 8 possessions. We saw a semblance of that against UCLA, but there were a few 3 and outs, too. We’ve also seen the defense harass poor QB’s relentlessly. Much of that was due to Skov and his presence was missed. The new guys seem to be learning his quickness but aren’t quite there yet. I’m hoping that by Oct. 29 that the Cardinal is clicking on all 12 cylinders.

Does anyone get the feeling that the crowd is different, and I mean in a good way? Waves that actually went around the stadium a few times, intense noise on opponent 3rd downs. Did you ever think we’d see “Get Lucky!” displayed in such a unique fashion?

Scott

The Get Lucky! stomach painting was a nice touch and it’s awesome to see 10 sections devoted to the student section, standing the entire game and raising hell.

Pluto99

elPalo, I would describe the fan atmosphere as giddy. People can’t help but pinch themselves throughout the games. I don’t think anyone is taking the winning trend for granted.

Offense deserves a solid A (not A+ due to the handful of three and outs.) and the defense deserves a B. Special teams were in the B+ range with strong kick coverage and a few nice returns.

UW and WSU are both looking a lot stronger than three weeks ago, so we’re not out of the woods by any stretch, but this is setting up for a massive late October/November run.

Five more guaranteed opportunities to enjoy Andrew Luck and the rest of the seniors in person!

Stevelsjuniv88

A couple people mention the “3 and outs.” I think you need to check your memory because Stanford only punted twice, didn’t fail on any 4th down conversions, and had no turnovers. In other words, they scored almost every time they got the ball, including the 99 yard drive.

Papa John

My biggest concern, other than the loss of Skov, is that Stanford still has zero interceptions on the year. That’s hard to fathom, given that opponents have had to pass a lot in every game due to the sizeable Stanford leads.

Stanford is going to need to win the turnover battle with teams like USC and UO. There’s a lot of pressure on the offense to be perfect.

’06 Fan

Does anyone have a link to a pic of the “Get Lucky” section? I didn’t catch that on the telecast. Thanks!

I too have been pretty focused on the zero interception stat, as in thinking on every defensive snap, “okay, intercept now!”

It seems to me the Law of Averages is pointing toward Stanford getting a bunch all at once. I am hoping it is going to be when it really counts (USC, Oregon, Cal, Notre Dame). At this point I’m happy having none since we are 4-0. I am more surprised that our defensive backfield hasn’t been picked apart yet. So far my proscription of same is working! Ace Of Swords.

harold

I think it’s time to stop wringing hands over the performance of the wide receivers. Their role has been assumed by the tight ends. In fact, Stanford should probably abandon use of the term “tight end.” Those guys are often split out or lining up in the backfield. They provide Stanford’s deep threat; the WRs are possession receivers, catching the six- and seven-yard passes that keep drives alive.